The Lovely Chocolate Mob - By Richard J. Bennett Page 0,114
of absence for personal reasons, so these misplaced funds in our various accounts were not discovered until a few hours ago! They were never stolen, merely misplaced, all because of automation gone wrong.”
Darla Bell: “Wouldn’t you say this is a good reason to have all monetary funds handled manually in the future, especially when the amount of funds is so huge?”
Walter Dale: “Yes, yes, you are absolutely right, Miss Bell. There are some things that machines cannot improve on. And I have a question for you if you don’t mind.”
Darla Bell: “And what is that, Mr. Dale?”
Walter changed demeanors on the spot, leered at her, and said, “Is there a Mr. Bell in your life?”
The men at the bar started laughing, Kim shook her head with a grin, and I smiled when I saw the news reporter do a double-take at Walter and the camera before saying, “This is Darla Bell signing off from…” and then stopping since she had forgotten where she was.
By that time, Walter was walking around her, almost strutting, and saying, “As you can see, I’m gainfully employed!”
Miss Bell quickly recouped to say, “Back to you, Greg!”
All the bikers laughed even louder, drowning out the news anchorman with the follow-up story.
There it was. All loose ends had been covered, except for mine. I could go home tomorrow and try to get back to normal.
After all this, I didn’t know if I wanted to get back to normal. Normal was boring.
Home
The next day I unhooked Walter’s RV and thanked the owners of the bar and grill, promising I’d be back for more meals and drinks, and drove toward the city. I listened to the radio all the way back in, but nothing was mentioned of the Lovely murder or missing inheritance or Dr. Burke; only weather and sports and traffic were the big news of the day. I pulled up into my street to find my house, windows shattered and police “Do not cross” tape tied from tree to tree, but there were no police cars around. I ignored the tape and went into my home, which was made easy since my doors had been kicked in. I made a mental note to look into purchasing stronger doors.
There was glass all over the floor, and the carpet and furniture were stained red, probably from the smoke and tear gas that had been shot into my house, as I found out later from the neighbors. They had really enjoyed watching all the developments.
I called the police department, telling them who and where I was. They asked me to come down and give a statement as to where I had been the past few days. I said I would but that I would like to clean up my house first since they had managed to smash it to pieces. The policeman became much nicer after I said that. I told him I didn’t blame the department, since they were only doing their job, and I wasn’t going to hold them liable. I was a big boy now and could buy new doors and windows myself. I guess I was feeling a bit guilty since I had, after all, probably broken the law a few times and led them on a wild goose chase on Lovely Hill. It wasn’t the insurance company’s fault either, so why make them pick up the tab? Good thing there really wasn’t too much damage. It’s just things; they can be replaced.
I decided to quit sweeping up in the middle of the house cleaning, and get a shower and cleaned up and into some clean clothes, hopefully some clothes that didn’t smell like tear gas, and drive downtown to see Miss Planter.
I headed downtown and stopped at Gary Byers’ Florist and picked-up a dozen roses. Gary smiled over the counter and asked, “What’s this for?”
I said, “Oh, nothing,” not wanting to share my personal life; after all, perhaps this might blow up in my face, as things had with Helen.
He replied, “That’s too bad; I thought they were for Miss Planter.”
“They are for--hey, how did you find out about…?” I asked.
“From somebody I don’t know,” smiled Gary, then he added, “On the house. If you like this girl, we don’t charge for classmates.”
I thanked him and told him that was a nice gesture on his part. While I walked towards the exit he said, “Anything I can do for a man on the run!” I laughed at that. I could afford to laugh, now.